*Disclaimer: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This took so many attempts to actually get through and I think the main reason was the writing style. Exploring the world of comedy in Japan, this story follows a friendship between two friends, a mentor and a younger comedian.

This was a case where if I’d felt connected to the characters, I may have had a better time with this book. However, I never felt like I knew the protagonist. The discussions of philosophy and comedy fell flat because I didn’t know enough about the characters outside of those discussions.

Within the last few pages of the book there is a surreal development with one of the characters and the subsequent conversation about trans allyship and transphobia felt completely out of place.

Overall this is probably one of forgettable books I’ve read in a long time. I’m happy that I finally got around to it but I can’t think of anyone that I would recommend it to unfortunately.

2 out of 5 stars!

This wasn't the funny read I was hoping for - but that could be something that just got lost a bit in translation, or which didn't work for me. Doesn't mean it's not funny for lots of other people! The characters were interesting and I liked the general set up and could feel their struggle.

This was such a cute novella! Definitely a fun read and I really enjoyed reading it. Give this one a try.

This is a short novel about a man called Tokunaga who dreams of becoming a manzai comedian with his troupe, Spark.

Spark is a drama about comedy but unfortunately I just didn’t find it that funny. The humour which may be funny in Japan just does not translate well. However saying this I did learn some interesting cultural aspects about Japan.

The book is ultimately a thoughtful narrative on chasing your dreams.

"Spark" portrays the amateur comedy circuit and provides an interesting insight into Japanese culture and manzai. It's a short novel about mentorship, friendship, pursuing your art and the frustrations of creating material with another person. Overall I didn't really get it and I gave up at the erection bit. Too bizarre. Apparently there is a Netflix series streaming now.

A quick read that provides some insight into the wacky world of "manzai" (stand-up comedy) in Japan. In Spark, the two primary characters take their work to heart, living and breathing manzai both on- and off-stage. Some readers may find them unlikable, but this lends an inherent realism to them, despite their off-beat lifestyles and profession. Perhaps not a "gateway" book for those wanting to start reading translations of Japanese works, as it is somewhat esoteric, but an interesting read if you're looking for something different.

I’m a big fan of Japanese fiction however lately it’s been hit and miss. Unfortunately this was a miss. The story was very average and easily forgettable. It still has that whimsical Japanese vibe of writing however I wasn’t a huge fan. Perhaps the translation was a bit off, I understand this was meant to be a comedy but I just didn’t find it that funny

I was so excited to pick up this one since I’ve heard about the Netflix series first, and I knew so little about manzai. I wanted to learn more about it throughout the book. Unfortunately, I had a hard time reading it because I couldn’t connect with Tokunaga and Kamiya. I keep picking up the book and then putting it down because the story didn’t keep me interested. My main issue was that I couldn’t see what was the author’s goal here or what was the message he wanted to convey to the reader and that was what lost me there.

An engaging read, not something everyone will love, however. Some understanding and familiarity of Japanese culture will be helpful to enjoy this tale of two manzai comedians, and the friendship that develops between them. Tokunaga, a young comedian, latches on to Kamiya, a more experienced comedian, and becomes Kamiya's student of sorts. Tokunaga is unsure of himself, unsure of his talent, and looks up to the bold, brash, confident Kamiya almost reverently, even as he sees Kamiya's style of comedy goes beyond the bounds of what's funny and not offensive at times. The friendship between the two is the real star of the story, the awkward camaraderie, the drunken conversations about life and the art of manzai. An interesting character study, worth reading.

#Spark #NetGalley

Just like its cover the content in Spark is quirky and off-beat – a story about two guys who are trying to survive and make it on the manzai comedy circuit. The first thing you need to know to understand the story of Tokunaga and Kamiya is what manzai comedy is since it’s crucial to reading and enjoying Spark.

Manzai is a traditional stand-up comedy form which is extremely popular in Japan and has been around for more than a thousand years. It involves two participants who, at great speed, trade jokes – usually at each other’s’ expense. One of the duo is portrayed as the forgetful, confused or dumb one – the Boke, whilst the Tsukkomi, the more intelligent one is constantly correcting the Boke’s misunderstandings. Jokes usually revolve around puns, wordplay and other clever verbal double-meanings. This humorous interaction also has a slapstick, physical element to it and is often compared to the style of Abbott and Costello.

Full review: https://wanderingwestswords.wordpress.com/2020/09/06/spark-naoki-matoyoshi/

Spark by Naoki Matayoshi is centred around Tokunaga, a ‘manzai’ comedian who is struggling to make a name for himself in Osaka so moves to Tokyo to achieve his dream.

‘Manzai’ is a traditional type of Japanese comedy which is c entered on a duo having a conversation, usually one person is a bit obscure while the other is quite straight and serious. It’s not a style I know too much about but this novel was very popular in Japan so I thought I’ll give it a go.

To be honest I didn’t really like the comedy in this book, but I’m not sure if that’s down to being lost in translation as a lot of the references went over my head. I just found a lot of it quite childish and not my kind of thing at all.

There is a TV adaption on Netflix which I may try as the comedy maybe works better live but I won’t be rushing to watch it.

Not my usual type of book but I really enjoyed it! It is a nice short read, very entertaining and enjoyable. I was glad to read it on my kindle because although it was translated into English, there were certain words/phrases which I was not accustomed too. However having said that, having read it I would be up for reading more Japanese fiction in the future.

I really wanted to like this book since I’m a huge fan of Japan and Japanese culture... however, I feel that something was definitely lost in translation here. I don’t think I found a single joke funny because quite frankly I didn’t understand them. The jokes seemed more like convoluted poetry to me half the time. The overall story was okay, but the book is supposed to be a comedy and I just didn’t get it.

Spark by Naoki Matayoshi is a quirky little book translated from the Japanese. It’s about a comedian and his mentor. It’s interesting to read about the Japanese culture of manzai comedy. Oftentimes the humour in the book didn’t seem funny to me. I think I would have liked this book much better if I knew more about manzai comedy and its references.

I really enjoyed ‘Spark’ which is more about the relationship between two young men, than about the comedy they perform.
I was not aware of the style of stand up comedy, manzai, before reading this book, it sounds quite amusing. The main character, Tokunaga, meets a more experienced manzai comedian, Kamiya, and asks him to be his sensei. Kamiya agrees and gives Tokunaga confidence, guidance and lots of alcohol!
Spark is a story of their journey together and experiences in the world of manzai.
Will either of them have real success in the competitive world of manzai? Will their friendship endure? Will Kamiya’s eccentricities tip into madness?
A brilliantly original book, highly recommended.
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Spark follows Tokunaga, a man from humble upbringings who works several jobs to fund his dream career of being a manzai artist.

Manzai was a new concept to me, so I researched it to get a better understanding and feel this helped me to grasp the scenes featuring prepping for performance or actually performing. Without this small amount of knowledge, I do feel this novel in translation would have still been a bit lost in translation for me, as the comedy exchanges and descriptions of performance dialogue were not at all similar to Western comedy. Knowing about manzai helped me realise what these comedy exchanges were and how they could be funny, even if I didn't personally find it funny. (Maybe a little footnote on the page to explain manzai would help other readers too).

When performing at a small festival, Tokunaga meets Kamiya, who is known on the comedy circuit for his extreme and controversial humour. Kamiya becomes Tokunaga's mentor, and the two develop a deep friendship as they try to crack the comedy industry.

Tokunaga is the more reserved character, focusing his efforts and energy on showmanship on stage and reaching a point where he can officially say he makes a living as a manzai artist. Kamiya, however, is a flamboyant character who draws the attention wherever he goes, often with somewhat extreme methods. Tokunaga works several jobs to fund his living alongside manzai, whereas Kamiya works solely on manzai, seemingly couch-surfing and taking advantage of a good friend's kindness, home and money. Kamiya seems like a bold and extravagant character, dedicated to manzai, and with a larger-than-life lifestyle, but the more we learn of him, the more we see his insecurities, childlike behaviour, and flaws. We start to question just how much of the apathetic, confident and polarising showman is just that - a show.

As the book progresses, Tokunaga sees more of this side to Kamiya and starts to question his mentor, as his routines both on and off stage grow more extreme.

In a nutshell, this book is about the difficulty of making it successfully in an art that has no black and white, right or wrong answer. It's a book about the struggle and strive to be entertaining and funny when every person in your audience has different tastes, views, life experiences and preferred styles of comedy. It's a book about the difficulties of living with uncertainty and self-doubt, all the while second-guessing and trying to get that balance between being pioneering enough to stand out but familiar enough to appeal to the masses. And ultimately, it's about the lengths people will go to on that quest for success, and the ways it shapes their personalities, friendships and lives.

Note: Whilst this book was well translated and written well, I feel some of its nuance and cultural background was missing for Western readers. A paragraph at the start or a footnote would be beneficial to explain manzai and Japanese comedy culture, and to avoid Western readers putting the book into the frame of reference of Western stand up comedy, which is not the same and could cause readers to find the humour misses the mark.

An insight into modern Japanese culture full of off-the-wall humour, drunken philosophising and ever-shifting dynamics in the relationship between teacher and student.

“Spark” by Naoki Matayoshi is by all accounts a hit novel in Japan. It has sold more than three million copies, won the most prestigious Japanese literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, and was later adapted in a hit Netflix TV show with the same time. The book is finally being published in English.

During a small summer festival in the countryside, the young manzai comedian from the comedy act Spark, Tokunaga becomes awed by the confrontational and extreme humor of Kamiya, another manzai comedian. He is so in awe with him, in fact, that asks Kamiya to become his comedy master, to which the latter agrees only if the younger man writes his biography. The two men start speaking on the phone and meeting frequently, spending their nights out drinking and going to Kamiya’s non-quite-girlfriend who cooks and takes care of both of them. Through the years, the two men create a deep friendship all the while trying to pick their comedy careers off the ground.

Writing and translating a book about comedy, especially the type like manzai where rhythm and delivery matter the most, is an incredibly difficult task. It is made even more complicated by the fact that any type of translation, even one as superb as that of Alison Watts, between English and Japanese simply cannot render properly the intricate wordplay and freeform connections that make this type of comedy so popular in Japan. This made me a bit worried going into the book as I expected it to be more manzai jokes-heavy, considering it is written by a comedian and is about comedians. However, this isn’t a problem here. That is because at its core, “Spark” is not a funny novel and it does not aim to be one. Rather, it is an entertainingly serious book about the art of manzai, the people who dream of making others laugh, and the brutality of the entertainment world.

And what a brutal and unforgiving world that is. With new comedians popping out all of the time and even the older acts like Spark having to constantly fear falling back into obscurity, even after getting a bit of recognition and TV fame. This uncertainty is what fuels the characters’, and by extension, all other manzai comedians’ deep insecurities and fear of rejections. This we see both through Tokunaga’s constant internal monologue but more importantly and poignantly, through Kamiya’s apparent nonchalance and dedication to never quitting manzai. Starting off as commendable in the beginning, this attitude verges on the mad towards the end of the short novella.

Kamiya’s character arc and its relationship to Tokunaga’s growth both as a comedian and later, a person, is one of the most fleshed-out and touching aspects of “Spark.” And undoubtedly, its main focus. Told in third person through the eyes of Tokunaga who becomes less and less admiring as time goes by and starts seeing his master in a more objective but ever friendly and non-judgmental way. Through him, we too, start seeing this apparent god of anticomedy for what he really is, a vulnerable and self-conscious person full of insecurities and complexes. A person who is okay to mooch off a girl who obviously loves him but is afraid to start a relationship because he doesn’t want to disappoint her. In a word, he is a polarizing type of person who is a true non-conformist or a fake who fears of growing up and does not want to admit his life has been a waste. Though Tokunaga thinks the first for the majority of the novel, with time, he starts feeling ever so slightly that it is the second. However, we as readers cannot but see right from the very beginning glimpses of Kamiya’s childishness and insecurities.

Our investment in the characters and their growing camaraderie is made even stronger through Alison Watts’ brilliant translation. The novel just flows and has this incredibly cinematic quality to it. Many a time I saw the scenes of Kamiya and Tokunaga drinking and talking about life so vividly in my mind, that I thought I had seen the hit Netflix show based on the book. And I mean real actual scenes playing in my mind with different angles, cuts and the whole shebang. In fact, this cinematic feel to the story is so strong that it actually implanted false memories of actually sitting and watching the episodes; and checking my phone; and talking to my chinchilla. Though I am absolutely convinced I hadn’t seen the Netflix show (I’m not the biggest fan of the streaming service and the majority of its productions), the vividness of the memories made me check numerous notes and online accounts just to make sure. Well, I was correct, I hadn’t. What’s even more, many of the scenes of the TV show which I skimmed upon finishing the book in a single day, turned out more or less the same as I had “seen” them in my imagination. That is incredible and speaks volumes about the quality of Naoki Matayoshi’s writing and Alison Watts’ translation.

Naoki Matayoshi’s “Spark” is a short, entertaining, and easy to read novel about manzai and the growing friendship between two comedians. Though about a very niche artform such as is the manzai comedy, the novel deals with universal themes in an elegant and delightful way.

Tokunaga dreams of becoming a successful manzai comedian (a type of Japanese comedy involving a duo, one straight man/one fool) with his troupe, Sparks. Then he meets up with an older manzai comic called Kamiya who takes him under his wing. Will they become the headlining comedians they hope to be?

Several things appealed to me about Naoki Matayoshi’s Spark: I had no idea what manzai was and wanted to find out; I’ve never read a comedic Japanese novel before and wanted to see what passes for Japanese comedy; and this was a huge bestseller in Japan and I wanted to see what appeals to modern Japanese readers.

Well, having read Spark now, I have the answers - and I know my tastes don’t align with Japanese audiences in the slightest because this book was AWFUL!

OK - are you ready to experience Japanese manzai comedy? Hold onto those sides now, you don’t want them splitting - here’s a sample:

“What’s your favourite food?”
“It’s hotpot.”
“Hotpot, eh?”
“Yes, hotpot.”
“You eat pots?”
“No, you know, the stuff that goes with it.”
“You must have extremely strong teeth.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“My teeth aren’t strong so I couldn’t do it, but what do you like better: metal pots or earthenware pots?”

I can’t bear to write any more of this tedious exchange but it goes on like this for another page. I know - it’s like a kid writing jokes. Later on, Kamiya (the more experienced comic) writes some “hilarious” haikus for a baby:

Two flies settled on a nun’s right eye.
Two flies sitting on the grave of a benefactor.
I am a fly, you are a cricket, that is the sea.
The flies are the antithesis of Parisiennes.
A melon from my mother covered in flies.

If I hadn’t been told beforehand that they were meant to be funny, I wouldn’t have known because they’re not even remotely amusing. Other “jokes” include Kamiya making the easily-manipulated Tokunaga get an erection while he moves his stuff out of his ex’s flat, to distract him from feeling sad or something; more childish crap about God painting the leaves different colours to signal the change in seasons; and the novel culminates in Tokunaga saying the opposite of what he means (eg. “Your place is a pigsty!” meaning it’s tidy) - sob sob, so funny AND emotional!

I’m just amazed that this barely-clever, unsophisticated material could be considered comedy by any adult.

Even without the unfunny material, there’s nothing about the novel that’s entertaining. Struggling entertainers struggling to make a living in showbiz - that’s it. They’re struggling because they’re not talented or funny and Kamiya might even be brain-damaged, he’s so unfunny. Take the ending, which was unpredictable but only because it was so bonkers. <spoiler>In an act of desperation, Kamiya gets F-size breast implants, like Meat Loaf in the Fight Club movie, because he thinks it’ll be so funny, he’ll immediately be put on TV. Amazing.</spoiler>

The writing is amateurish. A couple lines stood out to me: “The pain was painful... The pain was beginning to sting.” The pain was painful - wow. How did this win the Akutagawa Prize in 2015?!

Maybe manzai comedy works better live and I’d understand the humour better if I watched the TV adaptation on Netflix, but, going by this, it doesn’t surprise me that Japanese comedy has zero appeal outside of Japan. Spark is the antithesis of entertainment - not recommended to anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyhow!

Spark is about two struggling performers of Manzai, a Japanese style performance similar to stand-up comedy where the ‘straight man’ and the ‘funny man’ trade jokes at high speed. These jokes are not for us outsiders, but the main characters find themselves immensely funny. Tokunaga finds a mentor in Kamiya, who is his senior by four years. Individually they move from Osaka to Tokyo to make it big. Most of the story takes place near Kichijoji Station and Inokashira Park in Tokyo, Japan.

“Disrupt the colourful, beautiful world, and another unreal, more awesomely beautiful world will appear all on its own. That dude in the park had a radical instrument, but he wasn’t doing anything with it. An instrument like that has to be taken seriously. There’s no beauty in the world where it isn’t. I dunno how he got that instrument, but somehow he did, so now he owes it to the world to play the hell out of it.” And that also illustrates Kamiya’s drive. If you’re good at something, you owe it to the world to do the best you can. Be extreme in what you do. Pour your soul into it and dare to be different. Even clichés can be cool. His manzai uses the familiar – the ordinary – to wreak havoc.

“If you judge ideas by how ordinary they are, then creativity just turns into a contest of who or what’s the most unusual. On the other hand, if you reject new, unusual stuff completely from the outset, then it’s just a contest of technique. But if it’s only a combination of technique and originality that gets approved, then it turns into a contest who can be the most balanced.”

You can either get the audience’s sympathy or do something amazing. It is because of thoughts and conversations like that, that you should read this book. You might not find their jokes funny – I didn’t – but their approach to performing and creating things is really thoughtful. It’s not about what they do, but rather about the way they approach life and about their friendship. Tokunaga is a young guy who is insecure and follows someone he admires. The power that the one being admired has over the other is huge as his praise or rejection can make or break him. Until the student fails the master that is, then the situation is reversed.

Spark is both inspiring and sad. Naoki Matayoshi manages to draw your attention to two ordinary people and make them extremely important to you in such a short book. Tokunaga and Kamiya are both highly idealistic in pursuing their dreams. From their conversations you get a glimpse of how reality drowns those ideals. If your art is only for such a niche audience and you can’t make it big, what do you do?